


Be My Forest Love

by vvxw



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvxw/pseuds/vvxw
Summary: Immediately post 8x03 drabble for gendrya. Soft!





	Be My Forest Love

When you're fighting for your life—no, fighting for all of humanity's life—there comes a point when you stop feeling. The fear, or whatever feeling it is you get when staring into a void, dissipates when the true fighting begins, and is replaced with a determined numbness. 

Beyond not feeling anything emotional, Gendry was keenly aware of not feeling anything  _physically_ as he threw everything he had at wight after wight. It had been hours. Hell, it may have been days for all he knew, days without any sun, spent fighting for the ability to keep standing.

He couldn't count the number of wights he had killed. Bodies piled in suppressive heaps all around him, like a labyrinth of death. If he allowed himself to glance slightly to either side, he could see the few living soldiers still fighting. It wasn't a fair fight, either—each living person seemed to have at least half a dozen wights attacking at once. And even though the remaining fighters, himself included, would likely be smothered to death by corpses, Gendry had long lost the aching feeling in his body.

Towards the start of the battle, however long ago that was, Gendry fought against the cramping in his arms and sides from swinging his dragonglass hammer. Then his back began to ache from the twisting and maneuvering motions. It was difficult to power through. After the cramping came the fatigue. His hammer seemed to get heavier with each blow, and every time he was knocked to the ground by wights, it got harder to get up. At some point along the way, though, Gendry stopped feeling the tired. He was mechanical now, like his destiny would be to fight these fuckers for the rest of eternity. They would keep coming and he would keep taking them down, until he had killed every last one.  _Or until they kill you first_ , was the thought he would not acknowledge.

Of course, Gendry might be illiterate but he wasn't stupid. He knew there was only an infinitesimal likelihood he would survive this, the long night. He had spent the last six months forging dragonglass weapons for every man woman and child in the North, including the thousands of Unsullied and Dothraki. Some of the most renowned soldiers in the entire world. The best fighters humanity has, and they were being snuffed out like they were arrow fodder. He didn't need to see all the broken and abandoned dragonglass weapons strewn about the castle grounds. He knew most of the wielders of those weapons were part of the enemy now.

A massive shadow moved in upon the courtyard then, Gendry heard the thundering sound of it crash-landing on the battlements. The living next to him—was it Tormund?—suddenly ran back, shouting something. Gendry turned his head, almost slowly, and understood. The dead (undead?) dragon was wreaking havoc on the ravenry, blue fire exploding from an open pit where its face used to be. 

Gendry wasn't sure what the blue fire was, whether it was hot or cold, made of ice or what, but he knew it would spell death. He turned and ran to the cloisters, hoping for some respite from the battle. 

He had no idea how long he crouched, stabbing at wights as they came for him. He had no idea when he had dropped his hammer and picked up—what, a broken spear? He glanced down to inspect the weapon in his hand.

His heart gave a painful lurch. While the weapon certainly had a dragonglass spearhead, this was no spear. It was half of the staff he had made for Arya. 

With that realization, everything seemed to overwhelm him at once: his exhaustion, his pain, his fear—both for his own life and the lives of everyone he cared about. He realized he was bleeding from several places, including a particularly painful stitch where a wight appeared to have stabbed him in the ribs. And the blasted wights kept coming.

He could hear the dragon roaring, and occasionally felt blasts of hot air through the walls as that undead son of a bitch charred everything in sight. 

He gave a strangled cry as the next three wights fell upon him. His shouts contained the last of what he felt he could give—all the frustration, the anger at the futility and the sheer  _unfairness_ of it all. He fought his way back up and locked eyes with Tormund, standing in the yard on a pile of corpses. Despite the chaos, the death, the worst odds ever, Tormund had a mad glint in his eye.

_If you're going out, you may as well take as many of the bitches out with you as you can_ , he thought. That would be what Tormund would say. And if he had to go down, he was glad he could do it using the weapon he had made for Arya. He forged it strong, just like she asked.

As Gendry prepared to dive back into the fray, something strange happened.

The dragon stopped roaring and thrashing about. In fact, everything seemed to become still and silent all at once. The wights in front of Gendry collapsed, and as he looked around, he saw the only bodies still moving were those of the living. Tormund, upon his hill of dead, bellowed out a victory cry.

Gendry dare not move from his cloister for fear of some trick. He didn't know much about the Night King, after all. Could this be one of his tricks? To lure the living into believing they had won?

He crept out from behind one of the lower walls as Tormund climbed down from his peak. Jon Snow was in the yard as well, with charred armor on his shoulder to prove it. Gendry caught his eye, asking the question he didn't dare say aloud. Jon nodded his head, and Tormund gave a mighty whoop.

From all over the castle, the remaining living began congregating in the yard, quiet as death. People looked around for loved ones, living or dead. Many knelt in the charred dirt and wept.

As the living shuffled in, Gendry felt his eyes scanning the movement, looking for a small, dark beauty. His grip tightened around the piece of Arya's staff he had and he found it more difficult to breathe with every unfamiliar face he saw.

Davos came upon him then, sword in hand.

"It's over, lad," he said. "We won." He placed a gloved hand on Gendry's shoulder. Gendry flinched at the movement, growing increasingly agitated.

"Arya, have you seen Arya? I have..." He looked down at the weapon, stupidly. He could feel Davos' eyes, and Jon's, watching him. Davos' eyebrows came together as he gave Gendry a meaningful look.

"I saw her, in the beginning. But I haven't seen her for hours. Not since, well—" Davos hesitated. He looked down at his fingers, flexed them, then back up at Gendry. Gendry felt his throat constrict. He needed to know. "Not since she fell from the battlements."

No. It couldn't be, Arya didn't just die like that. She was a warrior.

"You talkin' about the bitch?" Came a gruff voice from behind Gendry. He turned his head and saw the Hound, covered head to toe in blood. His wispy hair was matted to his head like a helmet, and he appeared to be nursing more than a few wounds. Gendry didn't answer him.

"Yeah, she fell, but she survived that. She's a tough little wolf," he said.

"You mean she's alive?" Gendry asked, turning the rest of his body to face the Hound. He dared not allow himself to feel hope, but couldn't help the moment of relief when his stomach briefly unclenched upon hearing she survived her fall.

"Who knows," Clegane said, seemingly indifferent. Gendry knew better—knew the Hound cared for Arya, in his own way. "We got cornered in the great hall with the red woman. Red woman said something to the she-wolf, next thing you know she's jumping out the bloody window. Some help she is," Clegane grumbled. "It's a bleeding miracle we made it out of there alive."

Gendry pushed past the Hound and began pacing the yard. There was no use getting frantic in the chaos of the battle's aftermath, but every time he looked down at the piece of Arya's weapon he had, he seemed to lose it all over again. He kept replaying in his head the moments they had spent together earlier that night, what felt like years ago. He prayed that wouldn't be the last time he'd see her.

He ran his free hand through his hair and found it caked and crusted with what could only be a sickening combination of blood, mud, and corpse parts. His pace quickened as he started wandering the rest of Winterfell's grounds, resolved to overturn the whole castle to find her, if he had to. At the very least—Gendry swallowed the growing lump in his throat—if she was actually gone, they would want to lay her to rest in the crypts.

He wandered down stone corridors in the dark, peeked into rooms that were empty except for corpses, studying every dead face before moving on. All the while, wondering what he would do if he found her alive, what he would do if he found her dead. 

He almost couldn't believe how consumed he was by this anxiety. Only yesterday, he couldn't have cared if he'd be amongst the dead. For a bastard, even a royal one, his best hope for a comfortable life would be his trade, smithing. But Arya had changed all that. With just a few sentences, she had given him this hope that he could have something that had once seemed so out of reach his whole life: happiness.

That hadn't been Arya's first time dangling the happiness carrot in front of him. Years ago, with the Brotherhood, she had begged him to stay with her, to come live at Winterfell. He would never forget the look in her eyes, so fierce and strong, but soft with vulnerability for him. He had let her down then, had not been worthy of her. That was before he knew the truth of himself.

Now, years later, after working his ass off to become the kind of man worthy of Arya Stark, and she returned. She was so quintessentially Arya in so many ways, and yet, she had changed. Something in her, something that had been so open to him when they were kids, had hardened. He hated that he had hurt her like that.

And yet, their attraction was the same as ever. In fact, it had felt even stronger upon their reunion, like every missed opportunity had festered and grown until it consumed the both of them with need for the other. Not just physical need, either. That night they spent together, Gendry had needed Arya to know everything. He needed her to be his family.

That's why Gendry would be damned if, after all this time, after their incredible night together, she had been lost. He couldn't even bring himself to think it.

Storming through the castle grounds, Gendry made his next left and found himself at the mouth of the godswood. He paused for a moment under the stone archway to take in the sight: it was a slaughter. Dead were everywhere, seemingly covered by millions of tiny shards of ice. Gendry moved forward, slowly, wondering what had happened here. As he made his way to the weirwood in the center, Gendry noticed a shadow, crouched in the snow against the tree. His heart gave a lurch.

It was Arya.

Bleeding profusely from a wound in her head, Arya Stark sat in the snow, leaning against the trunk of the weirwood and admiring the valyrian steel blade in her hand. Gendry recognized the blade as the one he had teased her about a few weeks ago. It had felt so good to laugh, then. Arya's eyes flicked up at him, resting briefly on the broken piece of her staff, and Gendry stopped walking.

"You okay?" He asked. He needed to hear it from her. She seemed to study him for a bit before rising to her feet. He noticed deep purple bruises on her neck and instinctively moved towards her.

"I'm okay," she said as she straightened up, her eyes coming to rest on his face. "You okay?"

Gendry did not look away from her eyes. He was looking for confirmation of something that could not possibly be true, of their mutual okayness. Instead of answering her question, Gendry closed the small distance between them and kissed her. He felt her hands grasp his neck and moved his own arms to snake around her waist, realizing that he still hadn't let go of her staff. 

He couldn't tell how long they kissed for, whether it was seconds or minutes or hours. Their blood and their tears mingled together, and Gendry put everything he had left into the kisses he planted on her forehead, her eyes, the tip of her nose, along her jaw. This was the goodbye he couldn't bring himself to give her before the battle started. This was all he wanted to do for the rest of his miserable life, was hold and behold Arya Stark.

When eventually they did untangle themselves from each other, they didn't leave the godswood. They sat beneath the weirwood together, silently enjoying the existence, the life, the being of the other. After a long while, Arya spoke.

"I did it, you know," she said, looking down at her hands. Gendry studied her face. "I killed him." She met his eyes. Gendry reached over and captured her hands in his, pressing a kiss to her temple. His mind raced.

"I hope this doesn't mean you'll be wanting me to call you Your Highness," he said. Arya's head whipped up, and for a moment he thought she was gonna wallop him. Instead, she threw her head back and laughed. It was such a carefree, beautiful laugh, one that came from the belly. It seemed to release all of her fear and anxiety. Gendry couldn't help the stupid smile that split his face. 

They spent a long time sitting there together. The sun was high in the sky when they finally stood to leave their sanctuary, and face the reality of their hellscape. As they reached the entrance to the godswood, stepping over the bodies of familiar and unfamiliar alike, Arya paused to look back at Gendry. She held her hand out for him to take, and in that moment Gendry sent a silent thank you to whatever gods made this possible. For him to have someone in the world, someone like Arya.


End file.
